Monthly Archives: April 2015

[Quick side note – this track seems to have disappeared from my Soundcloud page. It’s out now on iTunes, so you should check it there.]

Picture this: you’re at home, content with your entertainment/snack/beverage of choice, when your friends decide they’re going out, and you need to go out with them. You decide to humor them, and find yourself stuck to a beer soaked floor, senses bombarded by a haze of chronic and the din of “music [you] don’t even listen to”, then numbed by the inane blathering of people with whom you, fortunately, have little in common. Said folks too drunk or stoned, or just too souped on themselves to realize, that you “don’t want to dance”, “don’t need a boyfriend” and – at the risk of coming off as an “anti-social pessimist” – would just like to be left in peace until your friends are ready to go so you can get the hell out.

If any of this sounds familiar, then “Here” by new (to me) Toronto-based r&b artist Alessia, just might be the soulful pop catharsis you’ve been looking for. “Here” finds the artist in sing-rap mode over a never gets old sample of Isaac Hayes’s “Ike’s Rap”, delivering clever lines (“some girl’s talkin’ about a hater/….she ain’t got none”) in a voice reminiscent of Estelle, or an un-autotuned Rihanna.

“Here” is taken from Alessia’s debut album, to be released by Def Jam and EP Entertainment. Check her out here, here, here or here.

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Montreal-based No Joy return with a track from the forthcoming long player, More Faithful.

Emerging from the bristled haze of their first two albums, these new tracks take a lighter touch. The band’s debut, Ghost Blonde, was mixed by Sune Rose Wagner of the Raveonettes, and No Joy seem to be following a similar musical trajectory; with each release, layers of feedback and reverb squall have been scraped and peeled away like so much wallpaper, revealing a lighter, pop core beneath. Granted, this version of “pop” retains the narcotic swirl and sway of shoe gaze (think Lush, Pale Saints), dream pop, later period Cocteau Twins, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me and Disintegration-era The Cure, etc.

“Everything” is the more straight forward of the two, a hypnotic combination of looping drums and chiming guitar; vocalists Jasamine White-Gluz and Laura Lloyd caress their lines. “Moon” features similarly ethereal vocals, this time juxtaposed against a counter tempo that makes the track list uneasily without, somehow, losing direction entirely; a languid guitar refrain holds things together.

When posting “Moon” on their Facebook page, the band said “it is not happy, it is not sad but what is it?” leaving the answer to the listener. The question could easily be applied to both songs – each has a greyscale, melancholic quality, but is it a wistful look back upon past experience, or one tinged with regret? As with many things, both seem apt.

More Faithful is due June 9, on Mexican Summer (US) and Arts & Crafts (Canada) – a link to a video teaser for the entire album is below. No Joy is also on tour, starting in May – dates here.

New from the Memphis, TN gang, wherein we find the band shifting gears with an ep chock full of cuts that will surely be in the running for “jam of the summer”, courtesy of your local Clear Channel, mind-control radio station. Just kidding: Cigarette Machine is a continuation of what Ex-Cult has been honing since their debut in 2012; all manner of punk goodness to soundtrack your next street fight.

For the label obsessives amongst you, the ep’s six tracks run the gamut from proto- to post-punk and even heavy psych, with a stray elbow here from post-Damaged Black Flag, riff-heavy west coast hardcore and even a cuff there from oi’s rhythmic chanting to round out the mix. Chris Shaw channels Rollins with his propensity for placing emphasis on…The. Last. Word. Of. Every. Line – drummer Michael Peery and bassist Frank McLallen bring the hammer and nails for this well-stocked garage. Bottom line: whatever the funk you wanna call it, it works.

While I’ve not always saluted the flag raised over modern purveyors of ‘70s AM mellow gold-inspired psychedelic pop, Portland, Oregon’s Unknown Mortal Orchestra has always felt a bit different. The band’s music sounds both 8-track and FLAC; a mixing of ‘70s, white guy R&B/“easy” psych-pop with more modern beats and structures.

“Multi-Love” is a good example. A call and response between the two eras – Supertramp-style organ and groovy sitar cut short by breakbeat rhythms. The cool, dispassionate robots of rhythm harshing your yellow-tinted memories of the polyester itch and chafe of a hot, wet American summer. The production has the band (and, in particular, vocalist Ruban Nielson) less covered in dandelion fluff than on past recordings, Nielson’s keening falsetto slinking over lines like “she doesn’t want to be your man or woman/she wants to be your love” – ‘60s free love, ‘70s key parties, ‘80s androgyny or modern, online virtual physicality? Why choose?

Taken from new album, Multi-Love, released May 26 on Jagjaguwar. The band is also going on tour, starting in May – check out dates on their site or Facebook page.